Some sites that compare aged care services are owned and operated by businesses. Some are run by the same business that owns one or more of the services being compared, which can mean they are not impartial. Others may have commercial relationships with, or receive money from, the providers they list.
Some of those services are useful. But those commercial relationships can influence how highly a provider rates or whether it is featured at all, so it helps to know how the money can move.
The three kinds of site you will find
Providers. Aged care operators publishing guides about aged care. It is written by an organisation that would like you to choose its services, so read it with that in mind.
Placement and comparison services. Businesses that ask about your situation, then match you with providers. They may have commercial relationships with, or receive money from, the providers they list. Ask whether providers pay them.
Government. My Aged Care and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. No commercial interest in which provider you choose. In our view it can be hard to navigate if you are new to the vocabulary.
How placement services get paid
One model is for the service to have a commercial relationship with, or receive money from, the providers it lists.
If a service says only that it is free to families, ask who does pay. A service can be free to you and still have a commercial reason to steer you somewhere.
Why this matters even when the service is good
A referral business may have commercial relationships with, or receive money from, the providers it lists, and this can influence how highly a provider rates or whether it is featured at all. That is not a criticism, it is just how the model works. But it means the shortlist you receive may not cover every provider in the market.
A provider near you that has no agreement with that service may never appear on the shortlist, so ask whether the list covers every provider in your area.
If a fee varies with the value of the placement rather than being flat, ask how the service makes sure that does not affect what it recommends.
What Australian Consumer Law requires
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has published guidance for comparison websites. In broad terms, it sets three principles: honest like for like comparisons, being transparent about commercial relationships, and clearly disclosing who and what is being compared.
The ACCC has taken action against comparison services in other sectors: it secured over $2 million in penalties against the energy comparison site EnergyWatch for misleading advertising, and Compare the Market paid a penalty over claims in advertising for its health insurance comparison service.
Questions worth asking any service that offers to help you find care
How do you make money?
Do the providers you recommend pay you?
Is that fee the same for every provider, or does it vary?
How many providers in my area do you have arrangements with, and how many are there in total?
What happens to my personal information? Who else receives it?
Will you tell me about providers you have no arrangement with?
A service comfortable with its own model will answer these without difficulty. Hesitation is itself an answer.
Where to get help with no commercial interest at all
My Aged Care, 1800 200 422, is where you apply for an assessment and search for local aged care providers that meet your needs.
Older Persons Advocacy Network, 1800 700 600, is free, independent, and funded to act for the older person.
Services Australia Financial Information Service officers can help you understand the financial implications of your aged care costs, at no cost.
How Aged Care HQ is funded
Right now it is self-funded. Nobody pays us, we take no money from providers, and we sell no enquiries.
That will not hold forever. Keeping a site like this current costs money, and the likely answer is the provider directory we are building. The model we have settled on is that every service is listed free whether it pays us or not, and a provider can pay for optional extras on a profile they claim and manage, such as photos and their own description. Paying will not move a profile up the results and will not change what we publish about a service. When it goes live we will say so on every page it affects and explain exactly how the fee works.
Holding other people to a standard means publishing your own. If we ever stop meeting it, this page is the one to hold us to.